


after the battle

by sbuggbot



Category: SteamWorld Quest (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Headcanon-heavy, Life-Threatening Injuries, Post-Battle, Pre-Canon, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28003953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sbuggbot/pseuds/sbuggbot
Summary: The immediate aftermath of the first Behemoth battle in my fic canon. (Notably contains the headcanon Orik was married at one point, and the original character that goes with that idea.)
Relationships: Orik (SteamWorld)/Umeko (Original Female Character)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this in a more incomplete form on Tumblr several months back, but this evening I decided to polish off what I'd written and add on some because I like this idea and wanted to do more with it.
> 
> Notably it's the first thing I've written into a postable state where Umeko isn't a posthumous character, so *throws confetti*!
> 
> Fun fact Orik and Umeko are both bi, call that mlm/wlw solidarity

At last, they had succeeded. Still holding the heart of the beast, he looked around for Orik. With everything going on, Gilgamech had lost track of him. The last he'd heard from him was a startled shout, and that was a while ago. (Whether it was a long while or a short while, he couldn't tell. Time wasn't passing correctly at the moment.)

He found Orik in a clumsy heap a small distance away from one of the Behemoth's arms. He'd lost his grip on his sword; that wasn't a good sign. What was much more encouraging at least was the fact Orik was trying to move, trying to push himself up and see why everything had just gone quiet.

Gilgamech stowed the Necronomicog and hurried over there as fast as he could. He was still standing, but he was badly injured and currently relying heavily on inertia from the battle to keep moving. Already things were starting to hurt.

Orik was in rough shape. That was an understatement, really--in addition to the various dents, scuffs, and dings, the Behemoth had managed to completely rip up part of Orik's back, around his shoulder. Part of his steam pipe was clawed off and part of it was still there but badly dented. It looked shredded. His shoulder was torn open, damaged mechanisms exposed for all to see.

Also, he was bleeding fairly steadily. 

He crouched down. "Orik? You still there?" Gilgamech asked, surprised at how hoarse his voice came out.

"Possibly?" He even sounded exhausted as he spoke; his accent was slipping. He pushed himself into a somewhat (but not actually) upright position and looked over at the slain Behemoth. "It's dead?" 

"I ripped its heart out, so I hope so."

Orik grunted and tried to stand up, only managing to get in a position resembling a crouch before his strength gave out and he fell back down. He sat still for a moment, irritably hissing steam from his vents before making another wobbly attempt.

"Hang on, don't push yourself," he said as he helped Orik to his feet. He slung Orik's less damaged arm over his shoulders.

Orik felt oddly warm. It wasn't all that odd, though, when you thought about it: Orik had been exerting himself very hard in the past couple hours, and he was a bot designed with a vent pipe as his main heat sink. Which was heavily damaged right now. It currently did not serve its purpose, and from the looks of it, it might not ever again. Gilgamech was trying not to look at it; it was a pretty grisly sight.

" _Itai_ ," Orik slurred. He could barely support any of his own weight.

Gilgamech wasn't quite sure what that meant, but based on his tone, he assumed it was a complaint of some sort about his current condition. "Yeah, I'm going back to the Temperance and taking you with."

The hike back was slow and passed in a fatigued but mercifully uneventful haze neither of them really remembered. One thing did stick with Gilgamech, however, something he could recall vividly even years later: a strange gurgling noise as they shambled along. It took him a while to place it during the moment: with the way Orik's back was mangled, he was bleeding and it flooded his pipe. Well, what was left of it.

Orik sneezed in a feeble attempt to clear his pipe. It didn't help much. He weakly groaned in annoyance.

As it was, Orik was at a very real risk of passing out with how injured and exhausted he was. Two problems with that: without getting medical attention _soon_ Orik was going to bleed out and die, and Gilgamech was too drained to move Orik by himself. Best option: talk to Orik and try to keep him awake as long as possible.

In the most basic form, it was like a conversation. Gilgamech would say something, then Orik would respond, and so on. The main difference here was the fact Gilgamech had no idea what Orik was saying, let alone if it even made sense in his language, and he wasn't sure if _he_ was being understood either. Orik, at least, seemed to be trying to resist fainting from the fluid loss and the subsequent pressure drop on his own. 

Miraculously, they made it there on their own feet---even if Orik was barely holding his own weight by now and fighting his body to stay awake _just a bit longer_. 

The two battered warriors staggered inside. There were several others waiting near the entrance to help them. "We made it, you can collapse now."

Orik lifted his head to see for himself. "Not yet," he muttered. It was the only understandable thing he had said since they started returning. After scanning part of the small crowd, he let his head drop with an exhausted sigh. He didn't know if he'd even wake up again; there was _one_ last thing he had to do...

Slowly and with considerable effort, Orik stood up on his own and freed himself from Gilgamech's hold. Wobbling in a manner that made a newborn goat seem rock-steady, he stumbled towards Umeko. She took several strides to meet him part of the way and ended up catching him when he lost his balance.

He blearily looked up at her and mumbled, "Umeko _...aishiteru_..." Just as he finished speaking, his last bit of strength gave way and he went limp in her arms. 

Umeko was stunned by several things at once here. First, the state her husband was currently in, barely clinging to life, and then there was the fact he’d said _that_ to her in front of other people. Even by the norms that he grew up under, Orik was extremely shy when it came to public displays (or statements, in this case) of affection. At first, all she did was hold onto him so he didn’t fall and hit his head.

Other people came over to help Gilgamech and move both heroes somewhere more suited to repairs than the main entrance. It took one of the mechanics gently touching Umeko’s shoulder and saying “ma’am--” for her to snap out of her thoughts. “Oh! I’m sorry--” she mumbled, wrapping one arm around Orik’s back and the other behind his legs and hefting him up.

The mechanic, surprised she had lifted Orik so easily, went ahead and led the way for her. A couple of other mechanics hovered near her as she walked, ready to take over if her grip started to slip.

The head mechanic indicated the workspace they were going to use and Umeko set Orik down, stepping back so the others had space to work. “Do what you must,” she told them. That was the point where she noticed Gilgamech wasn’t in the room. From what she saw before the severity of Orik’s state registered, he was hurt as well but not in a way that was as immediately life-threatening.

She watched the mechanics do their work but didn’t really process any of it. They ignored her since she was out of the way and not causing a scene, she ignored them because all she could directly focus on was Orik. So far they were focusing on stopping the bleeding and replacing the fluids he’d lost already. (She only realized how _hot_ he felt after putting him down.) Trying to figure out what to do about his mangled pipe was going to be a whole other thing. It was likely beyond saving.

Orik mumbled something and started trying to move once he was more stabilized, to the mechanics' surprise. He didn't seem to realize the battle was over and he wasn't in danger, just that he was in a lot of pain. Even in his weakened state, he was trying to fight and get the mechanics away.

"He's confused right now, I can talk to him," Umeko said. She crouched down where he could see her. "Orikun…."

He stopped struggling once he saw her. "/Umeko, I can't feel my arm…/" he mumbled in his native speech. Forming sentences in English was outside his grasp at the moment.

"/It's broken, but it's still there./" She stroked near his temple with her fingertips. "/You're safe now. Let the doctor take care of you./"

Orik grunted and moved his hand closer to their faces, trying to find something to grasp at. Umeko offered her other hand and he took it. He settled down at once; that was exactly what he was wanting. It was safe to relax now.

Orik let his mind drop back into the foggy abyss for the time being while Umeko continued quietly comforting him. They had each other right now and given the circumstances, that was plenty.

One of the assistants spoke up. "Alright sir, I need to put a line in your wrist now, so if I could borrow your arm for a moment..." 

He mumbled something only Umeko understood, squeezing her hand a bit. There was a pause and the nurse looked at Umeko for an answer. "He says he doesn't want to let go of my hand."

"Very well, we can work around it," the nurse sighed, moving his arm a bit so she could get to the right spot. She connected the line to the spot on his wrist and let the infusion pump do its thing. It was putting replacement fluids along with a strong painkiller in him at the moment.

Orik lifted himself partially out of his haze. “/Umeko, why are you covered in blood?/” 

“/It’s not mine,” she said, “You passed out on me from bleeding and I haven’t had a chance to change./”

“/Oh, I’m sorry.../”

“/It’s okay,/” she said, stifling a laugh. The man nearly dies and he apologizes for ruining her clothes! “/I can deal with it later, just try to rest right now./”

The mechanics worked on Orik for a good while longer, but even then they had to put off some repairs until later. Removing what was left of his pipe was only the first part of it; Orik needed some modifications to be able to function without one and _that_ process wasn’t perfected yet. (The damage prohibited simply replacing it.) And there was still the mess with his shoulder as well. Not only the joint itself, but several important control mechanisms for that arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (As far as Orik's untranslated Japanese, "itai" just means "it hurts" and "aishiteru" is probably the most intense way you can say "I love you" and is not to be used lightly, but here Orik was clinging to his last shred of consciousness and on the verge of dying so might as well tell your wife you love her one last time, right?)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I interrupt my updates for Manufactured with this because I felt like it

With the repairs they could safely do right now finished, there were considerably fewer mechanics hovering around and things were a lot less busy. Orik was in a recovery bed now--although he was still laying prone since the worst of his injuries were on his back. Umeko was still at his bedside, letting him hold her hand while she rubbed his head. One of the mechanics that was still there was double-checking the bandages and making sure they'd hold and protect the temporary patch job. 

"That should be it for now, he needs to recover more before we can do much else." The heavy bleeding had been enough of a shock to his system on its own without the fact he lost part of his body as well. They would have put off removing what was left of his pipe had it not kept flooding, rendering it not only useless but dangerous to leave in place. "A couple more things and I'll be out of your way."

"Alright," Umeko said, unsure if Orik was awake enough to understand. She’d been doing a lot of the talking on his behalf since she wasn’t dazed from fluid loss, pain, and drugs, and also could remember how English worked.  


Insistent on fighting the way the painkillers were making him sleepy, Orik asked, "/Where's Gilgamech? I don't remember what happened…/"

"I don't know," Umeko told him, "I haven't heard anything about him since right after you two got back. He looked like he was in better shape than you, but that isn't saying much."

"Gilgamech?" The assistant spoke up while checking and recording his vitals. "He's in the low-risk bay. He got pretty beat up too, but he'll probably be cleared to go back to his own quarters tonight."

"I won't?" Orik asked in English and with genuine confusion.  


"Between your shoulder and what happened to your pipe, it's gonna take longer to fix you up to that point."

He blinked. "Oh…”

“Orik, you nearly died,” Umeko said, half-realizing so as she said it. “You’re still really close, to be honest.”

He went quiet, taking a good several seconds to think. “/I'm very tired,/" he eventually said. And the back of his shoulder hurt like hell despite the painkillers.  


Orik tried to shift the way he was laying down, only for pain to shoot through his shoulder, down his arm, and even somehow along the pipe he no longer had. He froze and went rigid as a board, trying not to scream. He failed. 

Umeko clutched his uninjured hand and tried to console him while the assistant reset his shoulder as fast as they could. "/I know, I know, I'm here, sh-sh-shh…/"

Whatever part he'd moved wrong was fixed and the pain receded for now, although Orik was still seeing stars from it. He let out steam and a shaky sigh.l  


“He needs to stay put and stay still, not just for the broken shoulder. He can’t cool himself very well with just his auxiliary vents and he’ll overheat if he tries to do too much.”

"OK," Orik mumbled while Umeko nodded.  


"Now that things have finally slowed down some, you should... probably change and clean up, ma'am."

Umeko looked down at herself. Obviously, her clothes weren't going to get clean on their own, but it'd still slipped her mind amongst everything else. Letting her stay in the medical bay while Orik was being repaired, his blood all over her, probably wasn't standard protocol, but circumstances weren't normal. Or maybe nobody wanted to try to go against her stubbornness: subtle as it was, it was hard to break through. 

"Orik's in good hands, we're going to keep an eye on him. He'll be fine."

It was likely true, but the fact Orik still hadn't released her hand left her unsure about leaving him. He really didn't like being left alone when he wasn't feeling right and it appeared a near-death experience had not changed that.  


It wasn’t good for her to be here in bloodied clothes, though. She bent down to Orik's level. "/Will you be okay if I leave for a little bit?/"

After a hesitant pause, Orik released her hand and said, "/Yes, I think so.../"

She leaned forward so her face was close to his for a moment and rested her forehead against his. “/I’ll be back, I promise./” Then she stood up, stretched, and walked out of the medical wing.  


Nobody bothered her. Umeko didn't consider it at the time, but the fact her clothes were stained with blood combined with the look on her face probably scared people into giving her a wide berth. 

Good; she wasn't really in a state of mind to answer a thousand questions for people.  


At first Umeko thought that getting a temporary room set up for her and Orik inside the Temperance itself when they already lived nearby was overkill, but that was before Orik and Gilgamech had left to fight the Behemoth. And before Orik had been seriously hurt. She was grateful she didn't have to go all the way back to their house to clean up now, however. 

She filled the washbasin, then tossed her clothes in there to soak. They were probably permanently stained now, but she figured she ought to at least make an attempt at getting the blood out. She'd deal with it later assuming she didn't forget about it completely.  


After cleaning herself up and putting on a clean outfit, she looked around the room to see if she'd forgotten anything. A very small, grey stuffed cat was sitting on the bed right where she'd left it. She'd had this toy for ages; she'd creatively named it "Neko" when she was little. Somehow Neko ended up in her travel bag with her clothes. She suspected Orik was responsible; Neko liked traveling. (Umeko had done the same thing to Orik several times in the past.)

After a moment of deliberation she took Neko with and began to head back to the medical wing.

* * *

"Hey! Umeko!" It was Gilgamech, he was still in the other bay. She could tell he'd been roughed up and wouldn't be doing any fighting for a while, but compared to Orik he seemed okay. Some new marks and scars, but nothing life-altering.  


"Oh, that's where you went."

"How's Orik, nobody'll tell me anything and I'm not allowed to get up and check myself." The way he crossed his arms made it look like he was pouting.  


She moved to the doorway and leaned against it. "Did you get your hydraulics disabled for trying to again?"

"Maybe," he replied, which meant that had absolutely happened. "So, is Orik going to be okay?"

"He's not going to die, but…" Umeko went quiet and began staring off into space. Orik wasn't going to make a full recovery from this. He'd been hurt too badly, this damage was going to follow and affect him for the rest of his life, but how much?  


"Is he still…" Gilgamech vaguely gestured at his head. "...there?"

"Oh, yeah," she said, snapping out of her daze. "He's exhausted and drugged to Algyron and back, but he's still Orik."

"Scared me for a minute there, not going to lie."

She shifted so she could rest her head against the doorway."No, I was just thinking, because his shoulder's really messed up and they couldn't save his pipe. Or even replace it."

"...Can they make a pipe-bot work without a pipe and not melt?"

"Theoretically… don't know how it'll work in practice…"

A pained shout tore across the hall, making them both stop. Looking towards the source, Umeko muttered, "Orik…!" before taking off.


End file.
